News, commentary, and insights on adventures, and adventurers, from around the globe.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Sherpa Climbs Seven Summits In 42 Days

Way back last March of last year I posted a story on Ang Chhiring Sherpa, who at the time was attempting to set a speed record for climbing the Seven Summits. Fast forward a year, and he has accomplished his goal and in highly impressive times.

According to this story, which is in French, (use Google Translate), A.C., as he has known, managed to knock off each of the seven summits in just 42 days of accumulated climbing. That's the amount of time he actually spent on the mountains itself, and not his his total time from start to finish of all of the mountains. The individual times for each of the peaks looks like this: Mount McKinley- 12 days; Kilimanjaro - 16 hours, 37 minutes round trip!); Elbrus - 8 hours, 14 minutes; Kosciusko - 2 hours, 32 minutes; Aconcagua - 7 days; Vinson - 4 days; and Everest - 19 days.

A.C. actually finished off his quest last may when he completed his climb of Everest, but I hadn't seen confirmation of his final time until this story was send my way by Louis-Philippe Lonke earlier today. While the news might be old, it is still a very impressive time and accomplishment that deserves a salute.

It should also be noted that A.C. wasn't making the climb just to achieve a record. He was also raising funds and awareness for the Himalayan Women & Children Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping to educate women and provide basic health care and other services for those living in the Himalayan mountains.